Amazon.com, the world's largest online retailer, attracted the attention of the Obama administration yesterday when it announced that it will be adding 7,000 American workers to it's payroll.

President Obama is set to visit the 1 million square foot 'fulfillment warehouse' in Chattanooga, Tennessee this afternoon - which was the single biggest job creator in the state when it opened in 2011.

Full-time positions: Amazon is focused on speeding up order fulfillment, so 5,000 of the positions will be at distribution centers in 10 states

Amazon says it pays 30 per cent more
than the $10 an hour median for retail workers. But even at $13 an hour,
that's only a $27,000 a year salary. According to the Pew Research Center, the current three-person middle-class household brings in $69,487 in annual income. Two adults working at Amazon for $13 an hour wouldn't make the cut for that definition of middle class.

And
$13 an hour may be pushing it, since theWall Street Journalestimated
yesterday that the company pays closer to $11 an hour for jobs in picking, packing
and shipping orders.

That's
where most of the hiring will be in the next few months, as the company
looks to beef up staff at warehouses where it fills orders.

Positions available: The company is hiring a total of 7,000 new employees at facilities in 13 states

Five-thousand of the jobs will be at Amazon's U.S. distribution centers, which currently employ about 20,000 workers who pack and ship customer orders.

The company has been spending heavily on order fulfillment, a strategy meant to help the business grow, but one that has also weighed on profit margins.

The company said last week that it lost money in the second quarter, even as revenue increased.

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Growing: Amazon will be hiring 2,000 workers for their customer service division

These 7,000 new Amazon.com employees will definitely perk up the oil industry, which has been seeing a drop in the price of gasoline.

More workers means more drivers, and a higher demand for oil.

'We'll look to position ourselves for Friday's number and get a better gauge one how fast demand is growing and going,' Carl Larry of Oil Outlooks and Opinions said in a commentary. 'I think that demand is definitely more correlated to the number of people, which in turn leads to a lot more drivers.'